Potatoes and Hams

We caught Cyrano Friday night at the outdoor theatre. It was bad. I say this aware that my inability to make the cast of Romeo and Juliet could color my enjoyment. But Your Sister, who roots for local theatre to be its best, turned to me right after the curtain call and said "so, we're not seeing this group again unless we're part of a large party, right?" And I had to agree. The biggest problem with the show is the lack of microphones. The cast has to shout virtually every line in an amphitheater with poor acoustics. And neighborhood pets. And tree frogs and crickets (actual crickets in the audience, not the cliche kind) and church bells and car alarms and motorcycles. This flat shouting makes for a recital, not a performance.

The Cyrano actor tried his damnedest. He had the goods. His supporting cast was spotty (some of the Montford stalwarts are doing the shows no favors), but a number of them were gamers. I recognized a few from my audition. You'll remember how the director of that show encouraged the SNL-style of comedy delivery. He was in Cyrano, and we saw his style of acting, the classical stereotype of a Shakespeare performance -- broad, stiff, the method that makes an actor sound like Dudley Do-Right. So, yeah, I guess I'll try other companies for my theatre fix. Also, wearing Elizabethan costumes outside in July in Asheville? Not fun looking.

Didn't help that the directors made the actors fly through the lines to fit within a three-hour span. I wanted to like this, and I tried to hear all the lines despite the lack of mics, but Your Sis walked me through the show afterward, and I clearly missed crucial plot elements. If they fix the sound, they can work with inflections and tone and solve probably 80% of their problems. They won't even have to face out to the audience for all the lines.

We worked on the lawn Saturday morning, right before we plucked the remaining potatoes. After about a half hour, we had a bucket full of tubers. Had we not harvested the first batch a few weeks back, we would have too many to handle. As it was we ate four larger ones Sunday night for dinner. A library gardening book says we would notice the difference in taste from the store-bought potatoes, but we couldn't. Still, they were ours and we loved them like proud parents before gobbling them up like Saturn. We're planning on next year's crops and possibly making a cold frame for winter growth. Your Sis thinks we can use the old shower glass to protect the plants from frost.

I, of course, worked on your drawing this weekend, and I'll be able to ink the tighter sketch tomorrow after work. I'll mail you the image and potential text design (for a poster maybe) by the end of this week. I'll still have the weekend to work on it before we go to Washington.

Picture of the Day
Po-tay-toes.